1. Pledging Allegiance in Alliance

When searching through GenealogyBank.com’s database for historical Memorial Day newspaper articles, an article from 1970 gripped me. The veteran opinion editor’s plea to his fellow citizens to participate in Memorial Day was urgent, as if their lives depended on it.

I wondered this question. What had happened in May 1970 in Ohio to drive such urgency for Memorial Day that year? My GenealogyBank article answers this question. Mass shootings and war protests had gripped the nation.

2. The Fear of Being Forgotten

What are the roots of Memorial Day? The fear of being forgotten was very real to Civil War veterans as they reached the 1890s. They decided to take action by passing along patriotism to school children and to faithfully honor the war dead year after year. Read my GenealogyBank.com article.

3. When John Adams Walked among the “congregation of the dead.”

Did John Adams have the first Memorial Day in America? In 1777, he found himself in front of a mass grave of 2,000 soldiers, which moved this stoic man to tell his wife the experience was enough to melt a “heart of stone.” Read my substack and sign up for my free articles.